Startup Market Research and Planning Services

Successful business owners know their good customers, their bad customers, and their mediocre customers. They know more about their competitors than their competitors know about themselves. They never stop gathering information that will help them succeed in the marketplace. They use this information to reach new customers, retain existing customers, and grow their overall customer base.

Startups are often ignored or badly served by marketing consultants because they have low budgets and limited reseources. At Ground Floor Partners we have over a decade of experience helping startups develop marketing plans on a limited budget.

Benefits of a Solid Marketing Plan

Higher marketing ROI — your marketing dollars go much farther

Increased customer retention — which also leads to lower marketing and sales costs

Lower management costs — less time spent chasing “new opportunities”, more time spent on sustainable business growth

Improved business intelligence — you understand your competitors and your customers better, so you make better decisions

Higher profits — and better positioning within the market as leaders rather than followers

Our Process

Our complete startup marketing plan process consists of four stages:

Market Research

Analysis and Planning

Implementation

Monitoring and Adjusting

1. Market Research

Accurate, current market research makes a difference. Without it, you risk wasting money and time delivering the wrong products at the wrong price with the wrong message to the wrong customers. Our market research for startups yields solid, factual, defensible information that is directly relevant to your specific needs, not the needs of the “average” company in your industry.

Ground Floor Partners can help you gain a much deeper understanding of:

Market opportunities

Prospects and Existing Customers

Competitors

Industry trends

Environmental or regulatory risks

2. Analysis and Planning

We’ll develop a marketing strategy that differentiates your business from your competitors. We’ll help you differentiate your company from competitors in ways that are meaningful to customers; define (or refine) your company’s value proposition; and help your small business deliver the value you promise.

3. Implementation

Then, we’ll help you execute by translating your marketing plan into action through all aspects of the marketing mix

4. Monitoring and Adjusting

To be successful in the long run, you need to establish metrics to track results and continually refine the approach.

"There is always a better strategy than the one you have; you just haven’t thought of it yet."

- Brian Pitman, former CEO of Lloyds TSB

"Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."

- Sun Tzu

"What’s the use of running if you are not on the right road?"

- German proverb

"Planning is an unnatural process; it is much more fun to do something. The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression."

- Sir John Harvey-Jones

"Change is inevitable, growth is intentional"

- Glenda Cloud

"Chaos in the world brings uneasiness, but it also allows the opportunity for creativity and growth."

- Tom Barrett

"The innovation point is the pivotal moment when talented and motivated people seek the opportunity to act on their ideas and dreams."

- W. Arthur Porter

A fool with a plan is better than a genius without a plan."

- T. Boone Pickens (from his father)

"Success is doing a thousand little things the right way … over and over again."

- Charles R. Walgreen Sr.

"The general consensus of the board was we've got nothing to lose by doing a feasibility study. That'll give us data, not just feelings and what-ifs."

- Robert Haskell

"There can be no talk of when until a feasibility study is completed."

- Viktor Khristenko

“You can observe a lot just by watching.”

- Yogi Berra

"Slow and steady wins the race."

- Unknown

"Observe the turtle: He progresses only with his neck out."

- American Indian saying

"Complicare e facile. Semplificare e difficile."

- Bruno Munari

"I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot ... and missed. And I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

- Michael Jordan (in a TV commercial for Nike)

"Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so."

- Galileo

"You've got to be careful if you don't know where you're going 'cause you might not get there."

- Yogi Berra

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world."

- Harriet Tubman

"Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching."

Satchel Paige

When the river rises, the fish eats the ant. When the river falls, the ant eats the fish.